Digital Retailing

LocPad User Guide

Show Address Bar

This will turn ON/OFF the URL bar. When turned OFF, users cannot view or manually type in URLs. Note that if the Address Bar is visible, the user can type in any URL, but he/she will not be allowed to go to that URL unless it is in the Whitelist.

Show Navigation Controls

This turns ON/OFF all of the web browser buttons (Back, Forward, Home, Reload). If you intend to turn OFF these buttons, your website should provide buttons or links for navigation, such as Back, Forward, and Home.

Show WebPage Title Bar

This turns ON/OFF the web page title bar (The space above the browser's navigation controls that displays the words that appear between the website's <title> tags).

Full Screen

Turn ON/OFF the iPad's status bar. Normally, iPad Apps will still display the status bar at the top of the screen, which shows the Wifi/3G connection status, time of day, and battery charge level. However, Apps may choose to override this status bar and occupy the entire screen. This option lets you choose if you would like your App to occupy the full screen.

TIPIf you would like your web page to look like an iPad App that spans the entire screen of the iPad, we recommend these settings:

Show Address Bar = OFF

Show Navigation Controls = OFF

Show WebPage Title Bar = OFF

Full Screen = ON

Of course, before turning off "Show Navigation Controls", be sure that your website provides navigational links, so that your site can be navigated without these browser controls.

Browse Local Content

This is an advanced feature that allows you to load website content onto the iPad/iPod using iTunes. That means your end user can browse your website without requiring any Internet connection. We recommend leaving this OFF until you have reviewed the detailed instructions later in this guide (See Loading HTML Content onto the iPad)

Start Page

This is the web page that LocPad will load upon startup. It is automatically considered part of the Whitelist.

White-List

This is a list of allowed website URLs. If the website is listed here, the user can type that website into the Address Bar, or he/she can click on any links to these pages. Websites that are not listed here cannot be loaded by the web browser.

IMPORTANT! When testing the Start Page and Whitelist features, you may be tempted to load a popular mainstream website's home page. Keep in mind that many popular websites will temporarily redirect to a different URL that may not be in your Whitelist. It may then seem as though the website is not properly loading. Be sure to include all possible website redirects in your Whitelist.

Each Whitelist entry creates a pattern matching rule. For example, if you enter "amazon.com" in the Whitelist, then any URL within the amazon.com domain name will be allowed to load, because all of the URLs contain the text "amazon.com". If you instead enter "amazon.com/products", then only website URLs that include the full text "amazon.com/products" will be allowed to load. Use this feature to restrict your users to your specific website or to certain URLs on your website.

Password

This is the password that the user must enter to access the Settings screen.

IMPORTANT!You must specify a password to prevent end-users from accessing the Settings screen. If the password is left blank, the user can access the Settings screen without entering any password. The default password is blank!

Loading HTML Content onto the iPad

If you plan to use LocPad in a location where Internet access is not available, you can load an entire HTML website onto the iPad itself by using iTunes! But iTunes does not make this process very obvious, so here's how:

First, select your iPad under the DEVICES section on the left side of the screen.

Then select the "Apps" tab in iTunes.

Scroll the screen all the way down until you see File Sharing, then select LocPad

Then click on "Add.." to add HTML and/or image files to the LocPad app.

Don't forget to Sync your iPad with iTunes when you're done!

IMPORTANT!iTunes presently supports copying files from your Desktop to your iPad, but it does NOT support copying folders. Therefore, your website content must be created without using sub-folders.

Please note that once you Sync files to your iPad, they no longer be displayed in iTunes. Don't worry, they are on the iPad!

NOTE
If you are developing a website to load into LocPad, it's helpful to know the following things:

If you turn ON Browse Local Content, but leave the Start Page blank, then LocPad will just assume that index.html is your desired Start Page.

The Whitelist is does not apply to Local Content. It is assumed that all content that has been loaded locally onto LocPad should be accessible by the user.